Steps 1-5 help you get your house in order.  We have covered making a blue print for your home, a daily quick clean to help you survive, 3 boxes to declutter, routines to help you find time to do it all and cleaning your home!  We are now going to into organizing your life.  Step 6 is all about being prepared.  There are a lot of things going on in the world today that make this a vital part of organizing your life.  Many people throughout the world have found themselves without a home because of a natural disaster or even just tough economic times.  Being prepared in all things will bring you peace of mind in all the chaos!

Begin Step 6 by organizing all of your important documents.  This could be anything from birth certificates and social security cards to your medical information and Wills or Trusts.  First you need to decide what is important to you.  Make a list of all the documents that you want to have immediate access to.  Start with your marriage license and/or certificate, birth certificates, social security cards, immunization records, allergy information,  and gather all of them so you can store them in your desk organizer.  For a complete list of what you can or should include check out Tricia’s blog www.preparednotscared.blogspot.com and click on vital records.  She has listed important documents here as well as given many forms that you can fill out that will be very helpful in an emergency situation.

Next, begin working on emergency information and plans.  This could include evactuation plans and disaster plans.  It is important for your family to be prepared in any situation whether it be a fire, natural disaster, or an evacuation.  If your family has talked about it and is prepared to act, it will make a HUGE difference when it actually happens.  Children are scared when they don’t know what to expect.  If you have practiced and talked about an emergency situation, they will be much more calm when it comes to reacting to it.  I recommend checking out Tricia’s site for information on this as well.  She has several suggestions and other sites to check out listed on her ward blog.

This task can seem overwhelming.  Just pick what you can do and do it!  If all you can do right now is start to gather documents and talk to your children about a meeting place out front should a need arise, then start there.  Being prepared takes a little time but don’t put it off. Remember being a little prepared is better than being UNprepared!   Start small and continue to move forward.  I promise you will never regret it.  It is so handy to have all your documents in one place especially when you register your kids for school.  You will sleep better at night knowing that you and your family are on the road to being prepared!  Feel free to email us or comment with questions, suggestions, things you have tried that work, and things that have not.  We all need to learn from each other.Good luck!

Since today is an organizing tip.  I wanted to share one of my favorites with you.  I LOVE our Holiday Organizer.  Not only does it come with fantastic pages to help you organize your holidays better, there is a place for everything you have related to your holidays.  Not including your decorations of course.  But there is a place to help you organize your decorations as well in our Holiday Organizer.  I am talking about all those Bingo games, Tom the Turkeys, Halloween Scavenger Hunts, Valentine’s Love Notes, St. Patrick’s day Neighborhood Lucky Leprechaun game, and the list goes on with our products.  Then if you have additional stuff besides that, you have a lot to keep track of.  I found a way to utilize our Holiday Organizer even better by keeping everything together.  Doesn’t that sound familiar?  After dividing my organizer into two binders, January through June and July through December, I have taken ordinary photo holders, page protectors and page pockets and turned them into my storage of holiday ideas and games.  I then placed each of my holiday games and ideas in front of the cooresponding month folder for that particular holiday.  It’s the perfect way to keep everything organized and keep it handy in one place.  I love being able to go to that month and see all my fun games and ideas without having to search endlessly for where I put them last.  Even they can get lost or even forgotten in a tote full of decorations.  To give you a better idea, I took some pictures of how I put mine together.  However, make it work for you and your personality.  Feel free to comment about what has worked for you or you are always welcome to ask questions in the comment section and we will answer them for you.

Many years ago, when my oldest children were still toddlers, I wanted to have a checklist to go off of for our car kit.  I couldn’t find any out there that were all encompassing, so I created my own.  I even made it into a booklet that you can fold over and keep with your car kit.  I have loved having everything listed on one sheet of paper that I can just check off.  We thought it would be a great idea to share this with all of you.

72 Hour Car Kit

I have had an emergency kit in my vehicle for years, only used a few band-aids of out it so far, but my peace of mind has been priceless.  Take the challenge and get your kit started and in your vehicle by Saturday of this week.  Good luck!